Our obsession with getting half way

Here's the thing: we don't realize the assumptions and mental models we hold until they are challenged.
Both in education as in corporate training alike, we adopt a 'belt line' model that has been perfected to get us halfway. But the end game of learning is what we do with it. It isn't a halfway stop like knowledge -not even the very important self-knowledge-, or satisfaction, or a test score, or a diploma, or awareness, or feeling confident we are capable. As important and even essential in the development process as they are: they are intermediate achievements.
This is a rant on our obsession with getting half way.
I just think we can do better than that.

"We make them capable, you make them perform"

Both in education and in corporate learning, we still have a 'belt line' mental model. It goes roughly as "we make them capable, and then you use those capable people for good things". The mission of the education system is to teach and accredit students. The mission ends with the diploma, which is an entry ticket to the next stage in the belt line aka the employer. The L&D department within this employer has the 'corporate university' structure and adheres a similar mental model: "we from HR get them capable, then you business lines use them and make profit". This wall goes right through the levels of the infamous Kirkpatrick Learning Evaluation model: "we make them satisfied (L1) and capable (L2), you make them apply (L3) and generate value (L4)". It is one of the explanation why this intuitively appealing model has failed us for 50 years and counting. I've blogged my opinions on this model  before, like in part I, part II, part IIIa and part IIIb of the reflection series on the impact of learning.

Why it (is/has become) wrong

This split world view leads us to optimize sub-parts that in reality are neither independent nor sequential. Learning is the work and the work is learning, remember?

Think about it this way: what are the conditions for a belt-line approach to work? For example, it requires a predictable, plannable environment where you know up front what your are getting in the end. It requires parts that can be performed in sequence and executed as a 'black box' for other tasks.

You've seen as well as I have that our world has become increasingly interconnected and interdependent. This requires a whole systems approach, and not the optimization of the sub-systems. It requires the collaboration, interlinking and joint execution of components.

You've seen equally as I have that the world has gotten more volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA), and that 'interaction jobs' solving complex challenges by self-directed knowledge workers are on the rise. We can't structure this business as a belt line - we could in a production environment, but not in this one. Also, the 'belt line' assumes you know up front what you'll need to learn. That assumption gets challenged: it's all evolving so fast that in reality you learn as you go. What is the half-life of knowledge, and of a credential for that matter? The answer is not life-long learning in a split system, but life long learning+working in an integrated one.

As an illustration: Hans put it very eloquently in this video (in Dutch). We suffer from learned helplessness and need to move to self-directed learners. The knowledge worker is the only person who knows how to do his job - with as a logical consequence that you can't make the training curriculum for such work either. But you can stimulate the learning process by scaffolding experiences and inserting essential reflections. That's not something you can exclusively do before the actual work in a belt-line model.

Why it makes us waste time and money

This is a rant - I told you in the beginning. The reason I feel so strongly about it, is that the longer we stick to the 'half way' mental model (that we may not realize we have), the more time and money we waste by aiming for, investing in and measuring halfway stuff.

If we don't realise this distorted world view we will actually think it is really about the halfway measures and before you know it, we optimize the education system to have zero defects (= everyone gets a grade) and we optimize the training department to win Oscars (= all about satisfaction).

For example, take this NY Times article on investments in systems to detect if students are cheating on online exams. It is the investment to keep the quality and value of a half-way achievement: the exam grade.

For example, the biggest counter-argument or challenge for MOOCs is perceived to be the high number of drop-outs (only about 7% of people entering the belt line leave it at the end). That's the wrong measurement because it is the wrong mental model : people don't necessarily need to 'complete' courses, they need to get out what they need to get out of it when they need it for their lives and jobs.

For example, it takes the whole accountability and ROI debate hostage. In a belt-line view learning is accountable for 'making them capable' and the next component for 'making them perform' and the next component for 'capturing the value of the performance'. Let's not fool ourselves in the learning field: we never managed learning. (We may manage the logistics and try to manage the access, but only a learner can own and manage his or her own learning - all the way, not halfway.) Learning is a shared journey with shared accountability. But it is not split in two halves with meaningless half-way accountability for one of the parties involved. This half-way obsession lures us into thinking the half-way achievements have value on their own. They hardly do. Some intermediates are strong predictors of value, but they are still half way stops. Who has the heart to tell that to the millions of people that have taken debt to their ears to earn a prestigious diploma?

For example, it shift responsibilities to 'the other side'. Managers play a critical role in the development of their people - it is part of their job to develop others for crying out loud.  As Clive has written:
"The long-standing 'deal' with the learning and development department, as described so well by Charles Jennings, is that l&d take the problem off the manager's hands. The employee is submitted to some sort of 'treatment' which may or may not work, and everyone can tick a few boxes and continue to collect their salaries. ... And come to think of it, blended solutions are not what learning professionals expect either. Their role has typically been to turn up on the day, deliver a good performance, collect their happy sheets and then run like hell." 

As a final example, something that scared me. It's a post from Donald Clark and it's not Donald who scares me but this study he quotes. My simplistic interpretation: interactive learning gives you higher satisfaction, but is irrelevant for performance unless spaced over time. The belt line mental model makes us operate in events rather than being there the whole way. That is not how learning works.
"So happy sheets were hopeless, straight text based and interactive e-learning was not significantly better than a placebo BUT spaced practice delivered as learn by doing worked magnificently well."

So, what now?

You read blogs, you go to conferences, you see what happens around you. You know there are answers out there, they are just not mainstream yet.
What is going to stop us? First and foremost the mindset. It starts with realizing the 'halfway' model we keep deeply ingrained in us. Start working on that. The second thing that is going to stop us is a whole systems approach where the new model makes sense for the whole system.

Here are some things to start:

• Work on the vocabulary you use. Start saying "scaffolding", "facilitating the process", "extracting learning from the work", "reflection", "relationships". Give yourself a wedgie every time you use the words "content", "course", "accreditation", "Kirkpatrick".
• Go talk to the stellar performers around you: ask them how they got so good and stay so good.
• Reduce time spent talking about half-way measures.
• Adopt an output approach to learning rather than an input one.
• Stop investing in getting half-ways better.
• Map out a business model canvas and play with it.

And have some fun while you're doing it :-).